The blast in West, Texas produced a yield equivalent to about a kiloton of TNT. They know this by measuring the size of the mushroom cloud. You see they did so many open air nuke tests in the 40s and 50s that there is actually a formula for this. The amount of anhydrous (dry) ammonia gas in the tanks was enough to yield 1.2 kilotons if it was all consumed in the blast.
This was 1350 times what was allowed by Federal regulations, but since the Reagan Administration it's been up to the states to enforce these sort of work place rules. We don't know yet if the massive amount of ammonia nitrate also stored on the sight played any roll in the blast, it's an oxidizer and won't explode unless mixed with fuel oil.
Prairie2: Bare Boobs Kill! No, actually it's Right-Wing boobs that kill
George W. Bush On Legacy: 'There's No Need To Defend Myself'
Former President George W. Bush steered clear of any detailed reflection on his legacy during a recent interview with USA Today, saying that his actions over eight years in the White House largely speak for themselves.
"There's no need to defend myself," Bush said in an interview published over the weekend, in anticipation of an opening ceremony for his presidential library at Southern Methodist University. "I did what I did and ultimately history will judge."
Sandra Steingraber writes Earth Day letter from jail
The following was letter was written from the Chemung County Jail in Elmira, New York where Steingraber is serving a fifteen day sentence for blockading a gas compression rig last month owned by the Inergy gas company near her home in the Finger Lakes region of the state:
This morning – I have no idea what time this morning, as there are no clocks in jail, and the florescent lights are on all night long – I heard the familiar chirping of English sparrows and the liquid notes of a cardinal. And there seemed to be another bird too – one who sang a burbling tune. Not a robin–wren? The buzzing, banging, clanking of jail and the growled announcements of guards on their two-way radios – which also go on all night – drowned it out. But the world, I knew, was out there somewhere.
Hagel: US committed to Israel's military edge in Middle East
U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel assured Israel on Monday that the Obama administration is committed to preserving and improving the Jewish state's military edge in the Middle East.
Hagel, on his first visit to Israel as Pentagon chief, also declared that it is Israel's right to decide for itself whether to attack Iran to stop it from building a nuclear bomb.
Protesters ready for opening of Bush library, as wars on terror, in Iraq help define his legacy
History is far from settled over the Iraq war as former President George W. Bush prepares to open his presidential center Thursday before an all-star crowd of thousands and present his side of the story.
More than four years after Bush left office, protesters are lining up to criticize his eight years in office, saying he began an unjust, politicized war built on the belief that Iraqis were developing weapons of mass destruction - a belief officials now say were wrong.
Late 20th century was warmest in 1,400 years
Earth was cooling until the end of the 19th century and a hundred years later, the planet's surface was on average warmer than at any time in the previous 1,400 years, according to climate records presented on Sunday.
In a study spanning two millennia published in Nature Geoscience, scientists said a "long-term cooling trend" around the world swung into reverse in the late 19th century.
In the 20th century, the average global temperature was 0.4 degrees Celsius (0.7 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than that of the previous 500 years, with only Antarctica bucking the trend.
You Have to See It to Believe It: What It's Like to Have Fracking in Your Backyard
Ed Wade’s property straddles the Wetzel and Marsh county lines in rural West Virginia and it has a conventional gas well on it. “You could cover the whole [well] pad with three pickups,” said Wade. And West Virginia has lots of conventional wells — more than 50,000 at last count.
West Virginians are so well acquainted with gas drilling that when companies began using high-volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing in 2006 to access areas of the Marcellus Shale that underlie the state, most residents and regulators were unprepared for the massive footprint of the operations and the impact on their communities.
Fla. AG files suit against BP over 2010 spill
Bondi filed on Saturday on the three-year anniversary of the tragedy that killed 11 rig workers in the Gulf of Mexico and fouled 1,100 miles of beaches and marsh along the Gulf coast.
Texas Explosion Seen as Sign of Weak U.S. Oversight
The Texas plant that was the scene of a deadly explosion this week was last inspected by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in 1985. The risk plan it filed with regulators listed no flammable chemicals. And it was cleared to hold many times the ammonium nitrate that was used in the Oklahoma City bombing.
For worker- and chemical-safety advocates who have been pushing the U.S. government to crack down on facilities that make or store large quantities of hazardous chemicals, the blast in West, Texas, was a grim reminder of the risks these plants pose. And they say regulators haven’t done enough to tackle the problem.
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